Len’s Top 5 – April 7, 2014

1. Quick Hits

It will be Connecticut vs. Kentucky for the National Championship tonight.

For the first time in tournament history it will be the battle of the unbeatens for the Women’s Championship tomorrow night. 39-0 U-Conn vs. 37-0 Notre Dame. (The U-Conn men and women have both won it all in the same year: 2004.)

Not surprising. The NCAA president Mark Emmert called an effort to unionize players a “grossly inappropriate” way to solve problems in college sports.

19-year old Lexi Thompson won her first Major golf tournament beating Michelle Wie by 3 shots at the Kraft Nabisco Championship.

2. Final Two

No wonder nobody will ever win a billion bucks for a perfect bracket. Nobody had U-Conn facing Kentucky in tonight’s Championship Game. Actually that’s not true. In the ESPN contest, out of over 11-million entries, 1,780 brackets had U-Conn and Kentucky in the Championship Game. Kentucky is a 7th seed, U-Conn an 8th for goodness sake. An 8th seed has won before, Villanova famously in 1985. As for the Top 5 contest, one Top 5 subscriber picked Kentucky to win it all and one picked U-Conn. For everyone else, there’s always the Masters!

3. Order Now!

4. Mickey Rooney
1920-2014

You can’t sum up Mickey Rooney, who died yesterday at the age of 93, in a paragraph. For one thing he loved horses. He starred in the racing movie hit National Velvet in 1944 with Elizabeth Taylor. He played a retired jockey in the 1979 movie Black Stallion for which he received an Oscar nomination. He owned horses and was a stockholder in Santa Anita race track. He claimed to have once climbed aboard Seabiscuit for a training run. I met him several years ago, naturally enough at Belmont where he told Hollywood stories to anyone who would listen. He famously said, “I lost a $2 bet 65 years ago and have spent about $3 million trying to get it back.” I told you a paragraph wasn’t enough.

Today in Sports: At age 23, Jack Nicklaus wins the first of his 6 Green Jackets at the Masters. 1963.Bonus Event: Mount Vesuvius erupts and devastates Naples. 1906

Who will win the Masters starting Thursday? Simply email me in the subject line who will win and by how many strokes? For example: Adam Scott by 1. There will be multiple winners of That’s Sports caps and personally autographed books. One entry per person. The deadline is Wednesday. Good luck!

Need a gift for that young sports fan in your life? Check out my books. And if you’d like a personally autographed copy contact the Dolphin Bookshop at 516-767-2650.

ABOUT ME

Len Berman is an Emmy-Award winning sportscaster and New York Times Best Selling Author who has covered just about every major sports event including multiple Super Bowls, World Series and Olympics during his 40-year career in broadcasting. [Read More …]